Oct. 16, 2017, 8:15 a.m.

President Trump will meet with the controversial president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, during an upcoming tour of Asia, the White House announced Monday.

Duterte has been accused of egregious human rights abuse in his declared war on drug traffickers, which activists and others have blamed for the slaying of thousands of people, many of them innocent.

Trump has never condemned Duterte. In April, in what White House officials described as a "warm" and "very friendly" telephone call, Trump told Duterte he was doing a "great job," according to the Philippine government's readout of the conversation.

Virginia has been swamped by fearful images as Tuesday’s state elections near: heavily tattooed and handcuffed Latinos staring balefully at the television camera, a mug shot of a convicted pedophile set loose on the state.

Versions of those ads may be headed to other states in the 2018 elections, as Republicans seek to maximize the turnout of the burgeoning Trump wing of the party with themes known to appeal to them.

The strategy in Virginia by Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie has played heavily on themes of race and crime — itself an issue that has historically conjured racial stereotypes — in the style employed by President Trump last year.

Nov. 1, 2017, 5:15 a.m.

President Trump quickly seized on Tuesday's deadly attack in New York to promote immigration restrictions and to criticize his chief Democratic rival, New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer.

Trump's immediate labeling of the attack as a terrorist act and his calls for policy actions contrasted with his responses to the violence and a killing by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., in August — Trump wouldn't blame the neo-Nazis solely and said then he doesn't rush to discuss incidents without the facts — and to the mass killings in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, after which he said it was too soon to discuss gun laws.

The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.

Trump's Wednesday morning tweets followed a report from ABC News that the man apprehended in the New York attack, Sayfullo Saipov, came to the United States in 2010 through the diversity lottery program, which is designed to increase legal immigration from countries with lower numbers of migrants.

Oct. 31, 2017, 2:45 p.m.

The much-anticipated House GOP tax plan will keep the current top tax rate of 39.6% for the most affluent Americans but will make that bracket apply only to "substantially" higher incomes than the current $470,700 for couples, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told a group of conservative interest groups Tuesday.

The plan will also delay any repeal of the estate tax for two to three years, the speaker told the group, according to participants in the private meeting.

Ryan said he wanted the House bill to immediately cut the corporate tax rate to 20% from the current 35%, but he acknowledged that the final version may be different. "I can't speak to what the Senate's going to do," he told the group.

The decision by a key House Republican to maintain the deduction for property taxes but not for other state and local taxes is a victory for California but a bigger win for residents of other states.

While California has the highest state income tax rate in the nation, the state ranks in the bottom third by one measure for property taxes, which have been limited since voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978.

However, the deal to keep part of the state and local deduction in the Republican tax overhaul bill set to be unveiled Wednesday still would be a win for California.

Oct. 31, 2017, 1:15 p.m.

President Obama looks toward North Korea during a visit to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea in 2012. (Saul Loeb / Agence-France Presse)

President Trump won't be going to the demilitarized zone on the border between North and South Korea during his 12-day tour of Asia, the White House confirmed on Tuesday.

"The president is not going to visit the DMZ. There is not enough time in the schedule," said a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to brief reporters on the Asia trip.

Trump leaves on Friday and will stop first in Hawaii before visiting five Asian countries — Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines — at a time when tensions with North Korea have spiked over its advancing nuclear missile program and its threats to conduct an above-ground nuclear test. Those tensions were said to be a factor in the decision for Trump to skip a visit.

Oct. 31, 2017, 7:40 a.m.

President Trump continued broadcasting his frustration with Monday's announcement of two indictments and one guilty plea of top figures in his campaign, sending a second series of tweets Tuesday morning intended to deflect attention to Democrats.

The presidential tweets, amid one of the most challenging weeks of his presidency, mark yet another precedent broken by Trump. Many legal analysts have advised him against making impromptu public statements on social media during the investigation.

The biggest story yesterday, the one that has the Dems in a dither, is Podesta running from his firm. What he know about Crooked Dems is....

It is unclear what he meant when he said that the Podesta brothers could "drain the swamp." John Podesta served as Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. His brother Tony, who is also close to the Clintons, resigned from his Democratic lobbying firm amid the furor of the Russia probe on Monday.

Oct. 31, 2017, 3:00 a.m.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Monday brushed aside charges leveled at three Trump campaign aides as part of the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, but endorsed a new independent prosecutor to delve into a 2010 uranium company deal that has become a rallying cry for opponents of Hillary Clinton.

Kelly, speaking on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” claimed that all the activities involving former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, his chief aide Richard W. Gates III and a foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, occurred “long before they ever met Donald Trump or had any association with the campaign.”

In fact, the investigation, being directed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, covered the period in which all three served under Trump. Manafort and Gates were charged in a 12-count indictment that alleged money laundering, among other crimes. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the campaign.